Robert Derman wrote:
Robert Derman replies: I just dug out my old Olivetti manual and it was on the @ cent key just to the right of the :; key, where the " ' key is now. the ' apostrophe and " quote marks used to be in the top row. ~ is used for some hosted web pages, so unfortunately we do need it. However I don't know of any use for the ^ over the 6, that would be a good place for the cent sign IMHO. Does anyone know what the ^ is for?
It's currently used primarily to denote exponentiation. Like 2 squared is written as 2^2 and 2 cubed is written 2^3. Prior to that or in other contexts you might find it subscripted between two characters to indicate an insertion -- an editing mark.
It's one of those ways that the transition to word processors from typewriters changed the layout of the keyboard. Other symbols that didn't used to exist are `, ~, \, |, <, >, and maybe the [], {} pairs (except in mathematical typography).
What I don't get is why the cent sign had to go away. It's not like keyboard designers were averse to just adding more keys; you have the whole top row of function keys, the Insert, Delete, etc. block, the cursor keys, and the number keypad. Surely there's room in all that for the cent symbol.
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